I have been building a site with DW 5.5 and yesterday after a save DW will not open the site again...it starts loading the HTML code...nothing apears in the design view (I work with split screen)...and then it says not responding at the top. (I have waited over an hour and it doesn't start working again.)

I tried opening other sites and have no issue. So this is specific to this one site. I can open up my index.html file in browsers and every thing seems ok. I have tried the following:

checked for updates - am up to date

no extensions

restored the preferences

deleted the .dws site cache files

deleted the FileCache.dat file and the whole configuration folder

I also tried opening a new file and coping my code into the new file. The HTML runs fine but different valid CSS3 seems to cause problems. For example it won't let me enter via hand or through the option menu the following....

ul, ol, dl {

list-style-image: none;

list-style-type: none;

}

I've searched the forums and am at loss of what to try...any suggestions would be appreciated.

/* ~~ this container surrounds all other divs giving them their percentage-based width ~~ */

.container {

width: 75%;

max-width: 1024px;/* a max-width may be desirable to keep this layout from getting too wide on a large monitor. This keeps line length more readable. IE6 does not respect this declaration. */

min-width: 760px; /* the auto value on the sides, coupled with the width, centers the layout. It is not needed if you set the .container's width to 100%. */

height: auto;

margin-top: 5em;

background-color: #FFFFFF;

margin-right: auto;

margin-left: auto;

clear: both;

z-index: 1;

position: relative;

overflow: hidden;

margin-bottom: 5em;

}

.header {

background-image: url(../_images/graygrad.png);

background-repeat: repeat-x;

height: 6em;

background-color: #8e8e8e;

z-index: 2;

}

#RRWG {

float: left;

clear: both;

margin-left: 15%;

padding-top: 0.4em;

}

#top_social_buttons {

float: right;

margin-right: 3%;

margin-top: -2.6em;

display: inline;

z-index: 8;

clear: both;

}

.nav ul li{

font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;

color: #2e2e2e;

font-size: 1.2em;

float: left;

font-weight: bolder;

margin-left: 15%;

padding-left: 2em;

margin-top: 0.6em;

z-index: 3;

display: inline;

}

.nav ul li a:link{

font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;

color: #2e2e2e;

}

.nav ul li a:visited{

color: #2e2e2e;

}

.nav ul li a:hover, a:active, a:focus{

color: #FFAB57;

text-decoration: none;

}

.content {

float: left;

padding-top: 4%;

padding-left: 5%;

clear: both;

position: relative;

width: 50%;

min-width: 400px;

overflow: hidden;

text-align: justify;

text-justify:inter-word;

}

.meeting {

float: left;

width: 30%;

padding-top: 4%;

font-size: 0.8em;

/* [disabled]margin-right: 3%; */

position: relative;

padding-bottom: 4%;

text-align: center;

margin-left: 3%;

}

.twitter_feed {

float: left;

width: 30%;

/* [disabled]padding-right: 3%; */

padding-bottom: 2%;

/* [disabled]margin-right: 3%; */

margin-left: 5%;

}

#ricrac {

background-image: url(../_images/ricrac.gif);

background-repeat: repeat-x;

height: 7px;

width: 100%;

position: relative;

float: left;

}

#footer-page {

background-color: #383838;

/* [disabled]background-image: url(../_images/footerbckgd.gif); */

background-repeat: repeat-x;

clear: both;

padding-top: 3%;

padding-bottom: 3%;

font-size: 0.8em;

height: 9em;

}

#footer-page #left_column {

width: 30%;

float: left;

padding-left: 5%;

}

#footer-page #center_column {

width: 30%;

float: left;

text-align: center;

}

#footer-page #right_column {

width: 30%;

float: right;

padding-right: 5%;

}

/* ~~ This grouped selector gives the lists in the .content area space ~~ */

.content ul, .content ol {

padding: 0 15px 15px 40px; /* this padding mirrors the right padding in the headings and paragraph rule above. Padding was placed on the bottom for space between other elements on the lists and on the left to create the indention. These may be adjusted as you wish. */

}

/* ~~ The footer ~~ */

.footer {

position: relative;/* this gives IE6 hasLayout to properly clear */

clear: both; /* this clear property forces the .container to understand where the columns end and contain them */

background-color: #2e2e2e;

background-image: url(../_images/footerbckgd.gif);

background-repeat: repeat-x;

height: 8em;

padding-top: 10px;

padding-right: 0;

padding-bottom: 10px;

padding-left: 0;

}

h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, p {

margin-top: 0; /* removing the top margin gets around an issue where margins can escape from their containing div. The remaining bottom margin will hold it away from any elements that follow. */

padding-right: 15px;

padding-left: 15px; /* adding the padding to the sides of the elements within the divs, instead of the divs themselves, gets rid of any box model math. A nested div with side padding can also be used as an alternate method. */

}

/* ~~ Element/tag selectors ~~ */

ul, ol, dl { /* Due to variations between browsers, it's best practices to zero padding and margin on lists. For consistency, you can either specify the amounts you want here, or on the list items (LI, DT, DD) they contain. Remember that what you do here will cascade to the .nav list unless you write a more specific selector. */

padding: 0;

margin: 0;

list-style-image: none;

list-style-type: none;

}

a img { /* this selector removes the default blue border displayed in some browsers around an image when it is surrounded by a link */

border: none;

}

/* ~~ Styling for your site's links must remain in this order - including the group of selectors that create the hover effect. ~~ */

.clearfloat { /* this class can be placed on a <br /> or empty div as the final element following the last floated div (within the #container) if the #footer is removed or taken out of the #container */

Very similar problem. I've been using DW for years and this problem just started happening today. Just today, opening up files that were created in DW made DW freeze with the dreaded "not responding" message in the title bar.

I'm using DW CS3 on a Vista 64 system.

I work in split screen - Code and Design.

Fairly "busy" pages with Google ads and other external banners in the sidebars, as well as other external javascript and CSS files.

(Note the problem is not there when using only code view - DW becomes unresponsive only when a design view is open.)

Tried the delete-cache-file fix and it didn't work. (I noticed that the deleted cache file was NOT recreated on subsequent DW startups.)

What worked for me was changing a setting found in the View menu.

"Display External Files" was checked on.

Turned if off and suddenly DW started working again

(I noticed that after I did this, that deleted cache file was recreated.)

The problem and solution are repeatable on my system.

Turn that option on and open the "problem" page - DW freezes

Restart DW, turn that option off and then open the "problem" page - DW runs.

Just this morning I wasn't able to open page files for a site I've been working on using DW with no problem for years. I had used it last on April 18 with no problem. I've never had an issue with opening any page files with DW. Until this morning. I kept getting a "Dreamweaver not responding" message. I am using a Mac running OS X 10.6.8. I have CS4 DW.

I fixed my permissions twice in Disk Utlities. That didn't fix anything. Then I went to Adobe and found the suggestion on Adobe to delete the data cache in the personal Configurations folder so I did that. That didn't work so I deleted the personal Configurations folder. Still didn't work.

Then I found this thread and what you had done that worked. So I just looked for the "Display External Files" in the View menu, saw that it was checked, and unchecked it and now I can open my pages again and work on them. Hallelujah!

I wonder what went wrong? I've never noticed that "Display External Files" before and I hadn't checked it. But it was checked and I unchecked it. Now things work.

THANK YOU Codedawg. Same problem as everyone else encountered---suddenly my pages wouldn't open and DW would hang. Did that option(Display External Files) just suddenly appear and default to selected? Like Ginny, I never noticed it before either. Thanks SO much--you just saved me from reinstalling! !!

I'm having a bad week - newly installed Lightroom 4 running slow and my printer heads clogging - so when my index.html file started playing up in Dreamweaver I was well chuffed to find your solution! I've been using Dreamweaver from the very first version (I'm old) and never noticed this option before ...

I'd like to find out why this is occurring as well, so that we can ensure others don't run into this problem in the future.

Display External Files is an option that enables files (usually images) that exist on the web to be displayed in Design View. Design View usually only displays files that are located locally on your machine. This means you would have an absolute URL (e.g. "http://mywebsite.com/image.jpg") to the file in your page's code, instead of a relative URL (e.g. "/image.jpg") which would only look on the local machine.

Do any of the pages where you are seeing this issue have absolute URLs to a file?

If so, and you remove (or comment out) that code and turn Display External Files back on, does that fix the issue?

Since I have not been able to reproduce the issue, I am relying on you all to help me investigate this. Once I know more, we can go from there to determine the cause of the issue and get it fixed.

I agree with Nancy O. Strange thing is my problem page was ok, despite having both Google+ and Facebook widgets, until I decided to relocate this screen furniture on the page. And it was still ok to save and post the page ... problem only occurred some days later when I tried to reopen the file for further edits.

I'm using DW CS4 on Win7 and the problem only occurred within the last week or so on index pages, not on any other pages. All my images have relative url's, but there are various other links to remote images from Facebook and Flickr, plus affiliate and Google ads. They obviously don't normally appear in design view anyway. It was possible to open hung pages in code view.

I’m running Dreamweaver CS3 on 32 bit Vista. No extensions. Problem first happened last week on opening my index page in split design / code view. All my images etc are local apart from anything associated with the Facebook and Google+ widgets on the page.

I've also been having this problem with Dreamweaver 8 on an XP Pro system.

I solved it by designing my own artwork, and using that to link to the relevant Facebook page instead of having an official Facebook Badge. Can't see any reason why that shouldn't work as well for me.

I had no problem with the original badge for some months, so it's a change to their script that has caused the problem. Seems fairly typical of their attitude to their users - look at what is happening over Timeline.

Not sure if this will help anyone - but I have the same experience and my investigation shows ...

I see from a packet trace that when DW attempts to access an external facebook badge image, from http://badge.facebook.com/..., facebook returns an http redirection to http://www.facebook.com/unsupportedbrowser. When you browse to that page with a normal browser, you get a facebook 'improve your experience' page. When DW attempts to get that URL instead, it's request is for an image type file but receives a zero length text/html containing a header redirect - to itself, which DW responds to as a never ending loop. Problem in Facebook's handling of unsupported browsers.

Not sure if the recent facebook changes have impacted this, From memory, I never used to get the facebook badges appearing in DW, just a grey square, but they may have received a different (and more valid) response to a request for an image.